


Debbie and the Dance

by ransom191



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ransom191/pseuds/ransom191
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Debbie wants to go to homecoming, and Mandy and Fiona are going to set aside their differences and make that happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Proposition

When Fiona Gallagher shows up on Mandy’s porch in the middle of the afternoon, carrying Liam in her arms even though Mandy knows for a fact that kid is old enough to be walking on his own, he’s almost four, she’s surprised, but she knows exactly what to say.

"None of ‘em are here." She says, because Fiona is obviously looking for one of her many siblings. All of them have been spending more and more time at the Milkovich house lately, even Carl, and honestly, Mandy’s shocked it took that long for him to start hanging around, just look at his interests. Personally, she doesn’t get it, would rather be at the Gallaghers’ a million times over, but whatever, it’s not like she’s about to kick them out.

"I know," Fiona says, and that is a surprise, even more when she says, “I’m looking for you. I need your help. Can I come in?”

"Why the fuck would you bring a kid here? I’ve got a fucking bear trap in my living room." Mandy responds, and it’s not a joke, even if it totally sounds like one. This is her life. But Fiona gives her a look like she used to when she caught Jimmy/Steve/Whatever looking at Mandy’s ass, and also Liam says "Hi Mandy" in a way that’s so sickly-sweet it almost makes her nauseous, so she relents.

"Fine," she says, and opens the door wide enough to let the two of them in. Then she goes to scavenge for something to keep Liam occupied. From the back of her closet she comes up with a porcelain doll whose head got turned into a pipe at some point. She breaks off the spout, runs the doll under water in the bathroom sink. She finds two toy cars with no wheels in Mickey’s room.

Mandy hands the pitiful results to Liam, who Fiona has set in the recliner, looks at him seriously, and tells him he’s not allowed to touch anything else in the entire house. He nods, and she’s fairly confident he’ll behave, because Liam’s actually pretty good at following instructions, that makes one of them. There’s a pistol on the end table, Mandy removes the magazine.

"What do you need?" Mandy asks Fiona, who Mandy is pretty sure is about to ask to put a hit out, or buy some drugs, or scare someone away who’s been bothering them, or get ahold of something she can only afford if it’s stolen. Mandy has connections to do all that and more, and she decides then and there to give Fiona a serious discount, because all in all, she’s not that terrible.

And then Fiona, swear to god, pulls out a fucking binder, and Mandy doesn’t know what to think.

It’s full of pictures of dresses and hairstyles and flowers and everything has like six prices plus it’s all full of handwritten notes in every blank space and Mandy’s afraid Fiona’s had some sort of mental break because she’d probably have to address that somehow.

"What the hell is this?" she asks, and Fiona looks at her like she’s crazy even though she’s definitely not the crazy one in this situation.

"Debbie wants to go to homecoming," Fiona explains, and she makes a face like she’s swallowing broken glass when she says, "But I can’t do it on my own. It’s too —"

Mandy cuts her off then, because if it’s for Debbie, well, why didn’t she start with that.

"Alright." Mandy nods firmly. "We can make this happen."


	2. The Ticket

"So what do we have to do?" Mandy asks, because even if she’s willing to help that doesn’t mean she has any idea what she’s doing. She’s never been to a dance before.

But Fiona’s prepared, and she pulls some kind of check list or something out of her binder. She hands it to Mandy, who takes a look at it. There’s a whole bunch of things on it, stuff like dress and hair and makeup and ticketand flowers.

"How much money do you have?" Mandy questions, because most of this shit sounds expensive and it’s not like she could shoplift flowers and whatever. Where did they even sell flowers?

Fiona reaches into her bag and comes out with a handful of bills. She counts them, then counts them again, then looks to Mandy.

"Seventeen dollars," she says, and frowns. "I saved more, but Carl got bitten by that squirrel and we had to go to the doctors."

Mandy laughs, because Carl had been showing off that scar and saying it was a snake bite and even if she knew that wasn’t true, she didn’t know it was a fucking squirrel.

"Okay. How much is a ticket?" Mandy asks, and Fiona tells her it’s twenty-five dollars. She goes into her room and comes back with a ten dollar bill, hands it to Fiona.

"So have her go buy the ticket," she says, and then Liam starts to fuss. "I’ll come around tomorrow, we can figure out the rest of it."

Fiona nods, thanks her, picks up Liam. She thanks Mandy again, and then finally, she leaves.

What did she just get herself into, Mandy thinks, and then, Fuck, is Debbie going to have a blast.


	3. The Dresss

Walking around in a department store with Fiona and Debbie Gallagher and picking out a homecoming dress quickly becoming one of the most miserable experiences of her life. Debbie keeps picking out the most expensive dresses, fucking  _hundreds of dollars_ for something she’ll wear once, and Fiona keeps having to pull her aside and explain that they can’t afford something like that.

And then Fiona goes over to the clearance rack and picks out the most matronly dress there, and holds it up for Debbie’s approval. Debbie rolls her eyes and sighs, full of frustration, and says,

"I’m not a little kid anymore, Fiona. I want to look  _sexy_.” And Fiona looks like someone just killed a puppy in front of her while Debbie stomps off to the next section over and Mandy considers both slitting her own throat and walking over to comfort Debbie, and goes with the latter.

"Debbie," she says, and puts her hand on the girl’s shoulder, then pauses, because that was all she had planned. Mandy thinks hard, and comes up with something she hopes is halfway decent. "Look, you know she’s trying to help. Right? She just doesn’t want you to grow up or whatever. That’s her thing, you’re going to have to get used to it.

Debbie doesn’t look impressed, and she rolls her eyes again and mumbles ‘yeah’ under her breath.

"Let’s see if we can all make a compromise," Mandy offers, "and if we can’t, we’ll come back here, just you and me, and I’ll buy you whatever dress you want."

"Okay," Debbie says, happily. She walks back to Fiona and gives her a hug and whispers something in her ear, and Fiona laughs and they start looking through the racks again. Mandy goes to join them.

Two hours later, they’ve combed the racks over a dozen times but they still haven’t found anything that’s inexpensive but not tacky, sexy but not  _too_ sexy.

Finally, out of exasperation, Mandy offers to let Debbie wear something of hers. Debbie’s eyes light up and she turns to Fiona for approval, but Fiona laughs, shocked, and turns her down.

"No way in hell," she says, still laughing, and it reminds Mandy of the time she tried to loan Debbie some clothes for school. Fiona thinks Mandy dresses like a stripper, and to be fair, she kind of does. It still stings, though.

Fiona suggest Debbie wear something of hers, but Debbie says something about how lame that is, and Mandy feels kind of vindicated, just a little bit.

They think and think and come up with nothing, until finally Mandy says,

"Why don’t you ask Sheila for something old of Karen’s?" The suggestion feels sour in her mouth, as she fucking hates Karen, who’s more of a whore than Mandy ever will be, but she doesn’t dress like it. And people seem to like her for her sluttiness, instead of the way they hate Mandy for it, so maybe it might work.

Debbie likes that idea, Fiona approves of it, and ta-da, they’ve finally got a dress for Debbie to wear to homecoming.

And it only took almost four hours.


End file.
